personal attorney and was not an employee of the executive branch of government, and after the testimony of fiona hill we learned more about this shadow operation. i have to ask you, my day job is covering the white house for nbc news, goy there every day and i was there when nancy pelosi the house speaker came out to the microphone and spoke with me and my colleagues, chuck schumer and steny hoyer and others about the meltdown meeting that went down yesterday. you have the president on the one hand we re being told by the press secretary being measured and decisive and factual in that meeting. on the other hand tweeting out pictures of what he describes as nervous nancy s unhinged meltdown. on what planet can house democrats continue to work with the white house on any kind of legislation that you want do get done, whether prescription drug pricing or whatever? how is that possible now? well, first, let me just say that the president s behavior yesterday with everything that we ha
tantamount to a declaration of war that might seem like a very veiled threat or warning, but nonetheless, that s exactly what it is. president trump on the other hand tweeting this morning he has a great relationship with kim jong-un and that they both hope that this summit will continue the success of the summit in singapore. bill, talk about the optics of this summit there in hanoi. how much does this u.s. president need this to go well? reporter: well, this is the beginning of the really critical week for president trump. i mean, it s a bit of a cliche to talk about defining weeks of presidencies, but this could well be one with the testimony by michael cohen, with the possibility of the mueller report being delivered, and so on. so president trump does need, perhaps he would say he needs a distraction from all of that domestic news, but he certainly needs a foreign policy triumph.
federal government. and potentially fund some sort of barrier between the united states and mexico. president trump on one hand tweeting out that this was a productive meeting on sunday afternoon. people inside the room though are giving different accounts. according to sources this meeting was not very productive, one democratic source explaining that republicans presented to democrats a specific outline, an official justification for spending $5.7 billion on the president s long promised border wall, that democratic source feeling that the republican presentation was incomplete in their words. on the other hand, democrats have continued to maintain that they believe that the federal government should first be reopened before any talks about funding any sort of barrier could take place. in the meantime, president trump has continued referencing this potential drastic option of declaring a national emergency to secure funding for his border wall. the president talked about it on sunday
president doesn t have the power to declare an emergency and build a multibillion-dollar wall on the border. so that is a nonstarter. unfortunately the short answer is yes, there is a provision in law that says that the president can declare an emergency. and in this case i think that the president would be wide open to a court challenge saying where is the emergency. speaker nancy pelosi says that the house will begin passing spending bills this week to reopen parts of the government. the first measure funding the treasury department and irs so americans can get their tax refunds on time, but no sign that the senate will take up those measures or the white house would support them. white house correspondent boris sanchez with more. reporter: christine and dave, as we have seen during other meetings between top officials and lawmakers, we re hearing two different sides as to what happened during these negotiations to reopen the federal government. and potentially fund some sort o
their tax refunds on time. but there is no sign that the senate will take up those measures or the white house would support them either. white house correspondent boris sanchez has more. reporter: christine and dave, as we have seen during other meetings between top officials and lawmakers, we re hearing two different sides as to what happened during these negotiations to reopen the federal government. and potentially fund some sort of barrier between the united states and mexico. president trump on one hand tweeting out that this was a productive meeting on sunday afternoon. people inside the room though are giving different accounts. according to sources this meeting was not very productive, one democratic source explaining that republicans presented to democrats a specific outline, an official justification for spending $5.7 billion on the president s long promised border wall, that democratic source feeling that the republican presentation was incomplete in their words. on the o